We have had an awesome time in Malaysia and Thailand
since late 2015 and have enjoyed the Sail Malaysia rally, meeting and cruising
with new sailing buddies, the sights, the smells, and as always the friendly
locals. Combined they have made our time here truly exceptional. But we are so
excited today to be entering a new phase of our cruising life story; as it
marks the start of our Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos tour.
The coast line of Cambodia is relatively small in size, but it certainly does pack a punch. What it lacks in quantity it definitely makes up for it in quality. The islands are all very close, which is great as there are no long hard slogs to do and certainly no overnight passages.
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| Cambodian mainland and islands. |
The coast line of Cambodia is relatively small in size, but it certainly does pack a punch. What it lacks in quantity it definitely makes up for it in quality. The islands are all very close, which is great as there are no long hard slogs to do and certainly no overnight passages.
The islands are forested; some have resorts and some just small local villages.
Importantly, there are also some great protected anchorages. The east side of the islands offer great protection in the SW monsoon while some of islands offer shelter when the NE monsoon season prevails.
Importantly, there are also some great protected anchorages. The east side of the islands offer great protection in the SW monsoon while some of islands offer shelter when the NE monsoon season prevails.
We had a little bit of wind on the nose, unusual for this
time of year, crossing the border between Thailand and Cambodia, so we had
little to sail with and it was from the wrong direction. So we motored down the
coast stopping at Koah (island) Kong and Loah Rung, overnight. We could have
stopped at some of the smaller islands along the way but we had not officially checked
into Cambodia yet so it was not wise to dilly-dally.
The next day we made haste to Koah Pos to anchor, for check-in. I was in the cabin preparing the documents when I noticed the Captain had started doing donuts. Returning quickly to the cockpit I understood why. He was circling around what appeared to be a human being. On closer inspection our worse fears were founded, it was indeed a human being floating face down in the water. It was obvious from the deck that the poor gent had been dead for quite some time. We immediately attempted to alert the authorities on channel 16 but no one answered. After four attempts we aborted this plan, took a photo for verification and continued on our way to Koah Pos. We took the dinghy to the mainland beach, and the Captain went across the road to attend to Customs, Immigration, Quarantine and Port Authority.
The next day we made haste to Koah Pos to anchor, for check-in. I was in the cabin preparing the documents when I noticed the Captain had started doing donuts. Returning quickly to the cockpit I understood why. He was circling around what appeared to be a human being. On closer inspection our worse fears were founded, it was indeed a human being floating face down in the water. It was obvious from the deck that the poor gent had been dead for quite some time. We immediately attempted to alert the authorities on channel 16 but no one answered. After four attempts we aborted this plan, took a photo for verification and continued on our way to Koah Pos. We took the dinghy to the mainland beach, and the Captain went across the road to attend to Customs, Immigration, Quarantine and Port Authority.
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| Pretty Koah Pos. South of Sihanoukville harbour. |
We could have elected to check in ourselves but this would have only given us a 1 month visa, and we needed a 3 month visa with multiple entries, to allow us to travel over land and back pack for the duration. This cost us $USD 300 on entry and $USD 100 US on exit, quite expensive but we thought it was worth it. The advantages of this type of visa check in were obvious from the start. All the officials from each discipline came to meet us at an easy location and the check-in was fast, seamless and no hassle. On completion they then took the Captain by car into the town to get money from the ATM and a SIM card, great service in under 2.5 hours, whilst I waited on the beach entertaining the local children. It would have been a different story checking in ourselves, going to all the different offices via taxi and waiting to be processed, all up most of a day. After the officialdom Peter notified them of the body – verification with a photo and co-ordinates of the location were given to the officials. This piece of paper was passed around the table from person to person, with no one seeming to want to take responsibility for any follow-up action. The Police were finally notified, a statement was made and we were off leaving them to deal with the situation.
Now that we were officially allowed to roam we set off to explore Cambodia’s islands over the course of the next 2 weeks. We visited Koah Rung, Koah Kong, Koah Ta Kiev, Koah Pos, Koah Rong Sam Lem and Koah Ses, on the border with Vietnam. All anchorages offered great protection from the SW monsoon and we spent our time snorkelling, swimming, circumnavigating in the dinghy and relaxing. We never saw another yacht as we were told that there was only one other cruising in the country, and 8 permanently in the marina.
We were later told by an ex-pat on one of the islands that it is not wise to report bodies to the local authorities as they consider the last person to see the body, to be the murderer. It is also not unknown for bodies to wash up on their shore line and they just quietly bury them. The bodies are often fisherman that have fallen off their fishing trawler, and after witnessing local fisherman hang off their stern to toilet, it must be very common. One freak wave and they lose their footing, in they go and the boat continues on its way with the loud motor sadly drowning out their cries for help.
Time was moving on and the backpack beckoned so we motored back to the marina. Once in the harbour, known colloquially as ‘the pit’, we tried to anchor, which took 8 frustrating attempts. The bottom has been scoured out to make the harbour and offers little mud to secure your anchor, and to make matters worse it is filled to the brim with plastic bags, so it is a bit like slip, sliding away with every attempt. We had been conversing with the friendly Russian manager via email for a number of weeks and he was expecting us, but on arrival he was not there. Luckily one of his friends and fellow yachtie made arrangements. Rumour had it that the manager had been rounded up by Interpol and taken back to the homeland. There is a large population of Russian ex-pats in Cambodia and a lot of Russian money and it is apparently quite common for Interpol to do a regular trawl through the population looking for people of interest. Whether that is true and also included our manager, we will never know.
The ‘marina’ is really just one long jetty with rust issues and you tie up stern to the jetty, whilst a local boat boy dives down through dirty water to secure your bow rope to a sea floor structure, and fenders are placed between all the boats. The marina is located in the SW corner of the pit in an area known as ‘little Harlem’. We were quite concerned about leaving the boat there as the SW storms do pummel the man-made rock wall harbour, and we imagined easily scraping our next door neighbour. So change of plans, we would tour Cambodia for 10 days or so and return to assess the situation, before heading off to Vietnam and Laos for an extended period of time.
Now that we were officially allowed to roam we set off to explore Cambodia’s islands over the course of the next 2 weeks. We visited Koah Rung, Koah Kong, Koah Ta Kiev, Koah Pos, Koah Rong Sam Lem and Koah Ses, on the border with Vietnam. All anchorages offered great protection from the SW monsoon and we spent our time snorkelling, swimming, circumnavigating in the dinghy and relaxing. We never saw another yacht as we were told that there was only one other cruising in the country, and 8 permanently in the marina.
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| Some modern housing on Koah Ta Kiev. |
We were later told by an ex-pat on one of the islands that it is not wise to report bodies to the local authorities as they consider the last person to see the body, to be the murderer. It is also not unknown for bodies to wash up on their shore line and they just quietly bury them. The bodies are often fisherman that have fallen off their fishing trawler, and after witnessing local fisherman hang off their stern to toilet, it must be very common. One freak wave and they lose their footing, in they go and the boat continues on its way with the loud motor sadly drowning out their cries for help.
 |
| Looking south from Koah Ses to Vietnam. |
Time was moving on and the backpack beckoned so we motored back to the marina. Once in the harbour, known colloquially as ‘the pit’, we tried to anchor, which took 8 frustrating attempts. The bottom has been scoured out to make the harbour and offers little mud to secure your anchor, and to make matters worse it is filled to the brim with plastic bags, so it is a bit like slip, sliding away with every attempt. We had been conversing with the friendly Russian manager via email for a number of weeks and he was expecting us, but on arrival he was not there. Luckily one of his friends and fellow yachtie made arrangements. Rumour had it that the manager had been rounded up by Interpol and taken back to the homeland. There is a large population of Russian ex-pats in Cambodia and a lot of Russian money and it is apparently quite common for Interpol to do a regular trawl through the population looking for people of interest. Whether that is true and also included our manager, we will never know.
The ‘marina’ is really just one long jetty with rust issues and you tie up stern to the jetty, whilst a local boat boy dives down through dirty water to secure your bow rope to a sea floor structure, and fenders are placed between all the boats. The marina is located in the SW corner of the pit in an area known as ‘little Harlem’. We were quite concerned about leaving the boat there as the SW storms do pummel the man-made rock wall harbour, and we imagined easily scraping our next door neighbour. So change of plans, we would tour Cambodia for 10 days or so and return to assess the situation, before heading off to Vietnam and Laos for an extended period of time.
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